Watch: Bertie Carvel discusses filming Tony Blair coronation scene
The Crown may be all about the Royal Family, but in the Netflix show’s new episodes it’s Tony Blair who, surprisingly, becomes the star.
Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 to 2007, was once seen as the leader of a new era of hope with New Labour, and though that may not be the case now The Crown conveys his popularity in a big way — by introducing him with a coronation, his own.
The scene itself is a nightmare dreamed up by Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton), but the message is clear: Blair (Bertie Carvel) had the people’s vote at a time when the monarchy’s influence was waning. But the scene was difficult to film, with Carvel telling Yahoo UK that he “hated” shooting the scene in which he’s crowned king.
“I loved reading it and I hated shooting it,” Carvel shares. “I think it’s a brilliant and hilarious gesture because of course it’s the Queen’s nightmare in the series and so that gives us license to really push the envelope and it’s stylistically bold.
“I love the theatricality of it, but I really found it tricky to shoot because an actor’s greatest fear is to be found out not to be who they say they are, which is crazy.”Bertie Carvel
“But when you’re doing something that is deliberately not real, it can feel quite… it’s one thing doing that on stage, but there are so many opportunities to feel like an impostor on a film set because the amount of time that you’re doing the work that people see is tiny next to all the setup, and all the retakes, and somebody diving in to change the background or whatever.
“So the opportunities for distraction are enormous, and all you really have to cling on to is your preparation and your character, whatever that has turned out to be. But if that is someone else’s dream… I had spent all this time preparing to persuade myself that I could hold my head high as Mr Blair but now I’m playing someone’s dream of Blair? It’s like another level, It’s very meta.
“I really hated it and people kept coming up to me and saying, ‘oh, you must be having so much fun. It looks like so much fun’. And, through gritted teeth, I’d be like, ‘yeah, it’s great’.”Bertie Carvel
“And wearing a crown that will fall off any second, I mean I have some great sympathy with His Majesty because watching his coronation I thought I know how that feels now, this wobbly great object on your head. I was just thinking any second now I’m gonna trip and fall on my train and the crown is gonna brain the person next to me. But it was fun to look back on.”
Playing Tony Blair
Now, of course, Blair is a controversial figure because of his leadership, and support of US president George W. Bush, during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The events leading up to this conflict are depicted in The Crown, largely through word of mouth, as well as the public’s reaction to it later — but at first Blair is seen as a populist with a vision for how the monarchy could evolve with the times.
Carvel admits “you can’t avoid colouring” a performance with hindsight. Adding: “It’s the prerogative of artists to bring themselves, their own gaze, into the thing. But, actually, remembering how it felt in that new dawn to be alive was the key to go ‘well I remember the feeling in ‘97, personally, of hope’ and to carry that aspiration, that hopeful aspiration as an intention.
“I’m sure running a government is full of complex emotions so whatever complexity one might bring to it with hindsight I’m sure that’s going on inside, right? My job is to figure out what it feels like to be that person and then to say the lines from that place.”Bertie Carvel
“Any kind of controversy or mixed feelings that come after the fact you just reframe that and go ‘well put that inside, have that going on as an interior dialogue’ and then decide which voice is loudest at any given moment.”
Regardless, the key to capturing the essence of the former prime minister was to get his voice and mannerisms as close to reality as possible. The actor was particularly keen to make everything perfect because he felt he didn’t have “much opportunity” to do so the first time he played the character in the show’s fifth season.
“I prepare a lot and I have had very little opportunity to prepare for the season five stuff, I mean not none but a matter of weeks I think before we shot and not that much opportunity for us to [get it right],” he says.
“I had very short hair at the time, which is a pity because I’d just cut it all off, so that limited us whereas the season six stuff we had a lot more opportunity to work with Kate Hall’s wonderful hair and makeup signer to get the look right.
“[I] work[ed] on his particular cadence, rhythm, and to look at documentary footage of the verbatim sequences that we shot — of which there are several — and to internalise those rhythms, and to try and learn from them. On the day that may have been by design or by accident, that that’s how it came out. But that’s how it came out, so let’s let’s honour that.”
Carvel went on to say that getting Blair’s mannerisms and cadence right came down to “trial and error”, as adds: “You just try stuff in the mirror and or in your head while you’re learning your lines, and try and convince yourself that you are who you say you are. That’s the entire job, is to convince people that you are who you say you are and that starts with yourself, because you’re your own biggest critic.
“If you can say the lines and feel like, ‘yeah, that felt and sounded like Tony Blair’, then that’s good enough for me.”Tony Blair
“I think where it goes wrong is when you’re trying so hard to look or sound like somebody but you feel nothing then that’s not drama, that’s doing a good impression of somebody.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s a very amazing skill that some people have to make it drama, you want to make people feel something, and to make someone else feel something you have to be feeling something. Hopefully something appropriate to the scene, to the character, and that’s a mysterious craft that we’re all making up as we go along.”
The Crown’s final episodes are out now on Netflix.
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Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
